David Dale

New
Lanark

David Dale lived from 1739 to 1806. He was a self-made businessman
and financier who established the huge mill complex at
New Lanark. The wider picture
in Scotland at the time is set out in our
Historical Timeline.

David Dale was born in
Stewarton,Ayrshire where his father
was a grocer. After leaving school he became an apprentice to a weaver in
Paisley, and later worked in
Hamilton. Moving to
Glasgow he spent some time as a
clerk to a textile merchant before setting up in business himself in 1768,
importing linen yarn from the Low Countries. Dale married Anne Campbell, whose
father was John Campbell of Jura, a
director of the Royal Bank of Scotland in
Edinburgh. In 1783 Dale
became the Royal Bank of Scotland's agent in
Glasgow and opened their first
branch there. By 1785 Dale and his wife lived in a house designed by
Robert Adam in
Glasgow's Charlotte Street: he
was the epitome of a highly successful self made businessman.

In 1785 David Dale formed a brief partnership with Richard
Arkwright, the Englishman already famous for industrialising cotton spinning
south of the border to establish large scale cotton spinning mills in Scotland.
Together they purchased a site near Lanark on the fast flowing and
powerful River Clyde. In 1786 David Dale took over sole control of what became
New Lanark. By the early 1790s
he had four mills in full operation. For his workforce he turned first to
children. Out of a total workforce in 1793 of some 1150, over 800 were
children, many from the orphanages of
Edinburgh and
Glasgow.

Dale expanded his workforce further by recruiting Highlanders who
had been removed from their land during the
Highland Clearances,
offering them an option other than emigration. To house them he built much of
the rest of New Lanark,
starting with Caithness Row (a name reflecting the origin of many of the first
residents) and then the Rows at the other end of the village. On one occasion
he actually went to Greenock
to recruit Highlanders stranded when the ship on which they were meant to be
emigrating did not materialise. By the standards of the day David Dale was a
remarkably enlightened employer. Food and accommodation were good, children
were required to attend school for two hours each day (after their 13 hours in
the mill) and workers generally fared much better than others in Scotland at
the time.

In 1798 New Lanark
was visited for the first time by Robert
Owen, a 27 year old Welshman. He had met Dale's daughter Caroline by chance
in Glasgow and she suggested
the visit. Within a year Robert Owen was negotiating with David Dale to
purchase New Lanark. He married
Caroline Dale on 30 September 1799, and took over
New Lanark on 1 January 1800
for £60,000. This wasn't quite the end of Dale's involvement in cotton:
in 1801 he helped Glasgow manufacturer James Craig buy the similar
Stanley Mills in
Perthshire. David Dale died at his
house in Charlotte Street in 1806. He was buried in the kirkyard of St David's
Church in Glasgow's Ingram
Street. His grave simply carries the inscription: David
Dale, Merchant.